Distance learning may employ a communication system such as the Internet to deliver educational instruction to individuals at different locations and at convenient times. The student may have a computer communicating with a “learning management system” which is a program managing not only the delivery of course content but also pacing the students and monitoring the students' progress through tests and the like.
The use of computers to deliver and present course materials allows the creation of an “electronic textbook” providing features beyond those available with standard printed texts. For example, an electronic textbook may permit hyperlinking among topics or footnotes, the use of animated images and other interactive learning aids. The electronic textbook may include questions providing interactive quizzes and worksheets.
While electronic textbooks are potentially powerful learning tools, they have some disadvantages. First, the development of an electronic textbook can require considerably more effort than the preparation of a standard textbook with its associated illustrations. An electronic textbook requires the preparation of the underlying “logic” for the interactive learning aids, the delivery of quizzes, and the like. Further, the elements of the electronic textbook, for example animations, sound clips, and high-resolution images, all take additional effort to prepare. The complexity of preparing the electronic textbook can also make it difficult to modify the textbook for updating, special uses, and correction.
The second problem is that, generally, an electronic textbook is authored for a particular display platform that provides the necessary resources for features of the electronic textbook. For example, electronic textbooks having high-resolution images or animated interactive teaching aids are prepared for a personal computer having the necessary processor speed and display resolution. This can limit the use of the electronic textbook on other display platforms including newer display platforms, such as portable devices, cell phones, and the like, without costly modifications. The rapid change of technology and the rapidly changing preferences of students make this an acute problem.
Most textbooks are authored to embrace the requirements of a wide variety of curricula and are published in different versions, for example including or omitting different chapters, depending, for example, on specifications by particular school districts or educational facilities. With printed textbooks, this process of creating textbook versions is relatively simple because the formatting of the textbook (for example page size, printing technique) doesn't change and the new textbook largely requires updated pagination. With electronic textbooks, published for wide variety of different textbook readers, the versioning process can quickly become unwieldy.